World Cup Draw

I bothered to post my initial thoughts and analysis about the World Cup (WC) draw for the US in another forum and thought I would share it here as well. In short we have a tough road to get very far in Germany. Well, here goes...

Yeah, the World Cup draw wasn't great for us. Our group is certainly one of the trickiest. Why couldn't we end up in G or H? There will be mass suicide in Spain and France if those two teams somehow miss the second round as they have been prone to do in past World Cups (see France 98 and Korea/Japan 02 respectively.). As things were progressing I was just hoping to not see the United States drawn until G or H. Alas it was not to be.

We start out with Czech Republic which is a tricky match. They have both Koller and Baros up front. Koller is a huge target forward that hopefully can be neutralized by Onyewu. Who knows though...Oneywu doesn't seem to be on great form w/ his club right now. Hopefully Baros doesn't make an aging Eddie Pope or mistake prone Bocanegra look foolish. For me the real concern is Pavel Nedved. He has come out of international retirement and is going to play for the Czechs in the WC. We will need a strong performance by our central midfield to keep Pavel in check for an entire match. We need a healthy Reina and Armas/Mastroeni for that match. My hope would be that a long preparation from the Bruce can eke us out a win here.

Then we get Italy. Folks say that they aren't as strong as they have been in the past. I don't know what I think about that. Luca Toni (who plays for Fiorentina) has been on a goal scoring tear in Serie A lately. He will certainly be a handful for us up front. They can partner him with any other number of solid strikers (Gilardino, del Piero, Inzaghi, etc.). Then in the midfield we probably get to deal with Totti and Gatusso. Crap, that should be fun after spending the previous game chasing Nedved around. This could be a rough game as well...Gatusso is basically the biggest bully on the block. Not many folks play a harder holding mid that Gattuso. Finally we get to the legendary Italian defense. Maldini, Nesta, Costacurta, and someone else. Oh and if you manage to get by those folks you will run into Buffon. Yeah, Italy seems to be weakening. I would simply hope for Keller to have a huge game and a 0-0 tie. Maybe if they get a goal on us we can hope for the Beaz to surprise them with his speed. That probably isn't likely though as many of the Italian players have seen the Beaz in Champion's League play.

Finally, Ghana...oh that should be a rest...or another painful match. We will almost certainly need a big win from this game in an attempt to win a spot in the next round on goal differential. I don't know much about this team except for many have picked them as the best African team in the WC. Oh and they have this fellow named Michael Essien...maybe you have heard of him. He plays for this little English club...Chelsea. He has been playing very hard nosed lately so maybe we can hope that he will have picked up a couple of yellows or a red and be suspended for the match.

Certainly not an easy group. If we somehow manage to navigate the group our prize would be? Group F first or second place. Who is in group F? Brazil of course. That means that a second place finish in the group stage could result in a very difficult second round matchup with a Brazilian team that is super dangerous up front. Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Adriano, Robinho, and Kaka. How can they not score? Brazil may be hurting at the back though which would be the only reason they would not win the WC again. I mean who will play in the back? An aging Roberto Carlos and Cafu? They are certainly adequate, but not spectacular. They do have Dida minding the net which is a plus for them. The other teams in Brazil's group aren't spectacular so a first place finish in our group would probably have us see Australia or Japan which are certainly beatable. Who knows maybe we will be lucky and Brazil will forget to show up. I would really doubt it with Ronaldinho at the helm, but stranger things have happened in the WC.

If we somehow get through our second round matchup things might get better in the quarterfinals as we would see an opponent from group G or H which could be a well rested Spain or France, but could also be a weaker side as G and H are chock full of those. Past the quarterfinals things will most likely be tricky so conjecture and hoping for a lesser opponent beyond that point is useless.

All of this conjecture may be useless as well. The WC is a funny tournament where the favorites often go crashing out. I have just started to believe a bit in the U.S. team. I hope that they don't come crashing out of this WC. I could honestly see us losing three games and coming home disgraced. Well, those are my thoughts for what it is worth.

Oh, and one more thing I am bitter about. How in the HELL did Mexico get a very manageable group? Iran, Angola and Portugal? Not exactly a group that will cause concern. We got jobbed! We should have had the top seed and not Mexico. I blame Steve Sampson. He screwed us in France 98 and that came back to haunt us in the seeding formula. It doesn't matter that we have basically 0wn3d Mexico since the Bruce took over. Noooo, FIFA needs to look WAAAAAY back to the time when Steve was single handedly making us the laughing stock of the world. Just don't let it happen again guys. I just hope that Angola and Iran surprise Mexico and make them look silly.

World Cup Wall Chart Print it out and put it on your wall. I will certainly have one (probably of my own creation though) posted on my wall at home and at the office. Not that I plan on being at the office much during the World Cup :)